Windows Blue Pro with Media Center: How to unlock it and create a bootable ISO

Did you know that the leaked build of Windows Blue has the ability to install Media Center components via a clean install? It’s not particularly useful, but in the interest of continuing to dig into this build of Blue, I thought I would take a moment to show those of you who might be interested, how to create your own bootable Windows Blue Pro with Media Center ISO.

This is a very hands-on effort, but extremely easy if you follow everything to a ‘T’. Fair warning: I highly recommend doing this on Windows 8, because I ran into all kinds of funky errors on Windows 7 that I couldn’t alleviate. By all means, try doing this on 7 if you’d like, but if you run into issues, then give 8 a shot.

Before we get started, here’s a screen shot for proof of the results of this fun little venture (click the image below for the full 1920×1080 image):

As you can see, Media Center’s title at the top of the application is displayed in Asian characters for some strange reason (I can’t imagine why, what with this being a leaked pre-release build and all…), but I think that kind of adds to the fun in this sort of futzing about. With that said, let’s get started!

How to create a Windows Blue Pro with Media Center ISO

Run the ADK installer and only install Development Tools (Uncheck everything except Deployment Tools)

Create a folder in C:\ called BlueWMC

Create a folder in C:\ called BlueWMCTemp

Copy the contents of your build of Windows Blue to C:\BlueWMC (You will end up with C:\BlueWMC\boot, C:\BlueWMC\efi, C:\BlueWMC\sources, etc.)

Search for “Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment,” then run it as Administrator (Seriously, don’t forget to run it as Administrator)

Copy and paste the full contents of each of the following bullet points — one-by-one and waiting until each is complete before proceeding to the next — into your Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment window:

You should now see your bootable ISO, Windows_Blue_Professional_WMC-Build_9364.iso, residing in C:\

For clean-up, you can now delete BlueWMC, BlueWMCTemp, and install.wim from C:\

And that’s it! You should be all set. You’ll know if you were successful or not if you see the following at the bottom of the EULA in the early stages of trying to install this build:

EULAID:Win_RC_3_PWMC_V_en-us

Once you get up and running, to open Media Center, you’ll need to search for “Media” since the WMC tile doesn’t automatically load onto your Start screen. Lastly, if you install this in VMware and your installation of VMware Tools hangs, then make sure you select “custom” instead of “typical” when you try to install then again and remove Virtual Printing. That driver hangs for me when it tries to install.

If you have any issues with the steps above, then feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to help. In the mean time, you might want to go have a look at the two resources I primarily referenced to ultimately make this happen: here and here.

If it weren’t for those two resources, then I would have still found others with which to make this whole thing happen. lol. Seriously, though, all credit where credit is due. =)